All-Ukrainian Architectural Festival PROSTONEBA in Kyiv city of 7-9th of July, 2017

On July 7-9, 2017, a wonderful event took place in Kyiv on the territory of the Expocenter of Ukraine, - the all-Ukrainian architectural festival PROSTONEBA! This event is unique in its content and has own story.

The first festival was organized in Lviv in 2015, later was moved to Odessa and this year it was organized in Kyiv. This time the theme of the event was "Life in the City". How do we understand the city living? Noisy and restless, with a unique historical and contemporary context? The space of the festival opened this discussion, that has a pretty big relevance nowadays.

Organizers of the festival:

Agency for Architecture and Design Zdorenko Agency

Magazine Prima Interior

Association of Landscape Architects of Ukraine

With support: Department of Urban Development and Architecture of the Kyiv City State Administration

As always, the program of the festival was full of events. Three days of lectures, three project contests, two contests of instalations, workshops from architects, designers, urbanists - all of this, bright inspirational emotions and even more was presented at the festival.

The lectures sequence of the landscape day was opened by landscape architect Maxim Kotsyuba. Maxim told about his projects, the role of the landscape architect in the modern design of urban facilities. Maxim performed how it is possible in the current situation to change the urban space, to give the inhabitants freedom of perception and movement, while ennobling the territory in the style of modern design on a base of his project.

A guest from the UK Kyle Gallagher spoke about the current trends in British landscape architecture. How to make the garden intuitively understandable? - The keys to success are: Minimalism and simple forms. Small spaces that can be stylish and comfortable to work with, using high-quality modern materials. Water, metal, wood.

Olga Kleitman, the architect from Kharkiv, reported about the state of the parks in Kharkiv. As the needs of a modern city are primarily the needs of the citizens, therefore, a modern park has to serve not only an entertaining function, but also provide the territory for a relaxing, communication and privacy. Also, Olga told about one of her projects, Sarzhin Yar Landscape Park, in Kharkiv.

The full hall was assembled by Jelle Therry from WEST8, the Netherlands. He shared the experience of WEST8 collaborations in the capitals and big cities of the world. Projects in the USA (New York), Canada (Toronto), Spain (Madrid) have attracted listeners, as they are unique examples of art in landscaping and urbanism. The art of revitalizing abandoned areas of a city, finding the ways of attracting citizens back to the nature, keeping in mind the uniqueness of each culture, loving the space they live in and, of course, solving beautifully the engineering challenges of nature.We openly share materials with colleagues, future colleagues, and with everyone who is interested in this topic.You can listen to this lecture here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WOWElbr4Go

Katarina Gheorghe, an urbanist from Berlin, and consultant at the Department of Kyiv City Architecture, presented us, as to the residents of the big city, a great example of a big city lifestyle, arriving to her lecture on a bicycle. Her lecture was about ecological transport and the return of water to the city. On the example of the river in Berlin, Katarina showed how water resources can become a part of the urban structure of the city. Addressing to history, Katarina showed how to integrate the water environment into the city by taking into the account the needs of the city in the past and the needs of the city nowadays."Green and blue: Water and the landscape in the city", a lecture on how to make the water shores accessible to everyone.Learn more: https://www.youtube.com/watch? V = jY5AKgLXRiQ

Yulia Polyova, the head of ZiNCO Ukraine company, focused her attention on the mistakes in designing green roofs. The culture of green roofs slowly but steadily enters the Ukrainian realities and we must be ready to defend the quality work. Yulia reminded that beautiful design is always based on a well considered plan and a good quality of implementation with the help of modern and time-tested materials

Stanislav Demin, with his energetic report, showed the students how important is to set the goals in architectural and urban design in the cities, performed his new project Vita Urbis, which is aimed at contemporary urban design. Also, Stanislav emphasized the very uncomfortable issues of the modern city, such as new developments, lacks of the connections in the city space and the impact of these problems on the health of society and its future. Because, after all, the city is only an outer ‘suit’ of society.

Jeremy Greschak, the manager of the company Rain Bird from France, told about what is necessary for the private gardens, as well as the city garden, for keeping it attractive all the time. Jeremy shared with the research and experience that is being implemented throughout Europe, with the main focus on the savings of the resources. High-quality automatic watering systems allow the implementation of "reasonable use of water resources" on the site. This lecture will be useful for both landscape designers and architects.

During the festival, were held two competitions:

the design contest of the park "Heroes of Ukraine" and the contest of the landscape design installations, which were implemented at the Festival.

In the design competition of the design of the park "Heroes of Ukraine", the competent jury chose two winners. It had taken more than 5 hours for the jury to choose the winner.

The first place was taken by a team of architects: Anna Potanina, Konoplyova Svetlana. In addition to the main prize, architects will be able to design a park in the future and participate in its implementation.

The second place in the design contest took Protsik Maria, Volynets Irina.

The award to the main winner was presented by the chairman of the jury Jello Terry who warmly congratulated the architects.

A banquet at the open air finished this wonderful event. Even heavy rain was not an obstacle for a huge company of architects for celebration of this this day!